RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-art-of-a-mideast-deal-11600211909?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

How would official Washington respond if a Democratic President brokered a peace deal between Israel and two Arab states? The papers would be stacked with play-by-plays of how the historic breakthrough was achieved and adulatory profiles of the people in the room. The hosannas to the President’s strategic vision would flow from think tanks and academia, if not also from Oslo’s City Hall.

The reaction Tuesday to the signing of the Abraham Accords between Israel, the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain at the White House was more muted, and maybe that’s for the best. Some groundwork for the cascading thaw in Arab-Israeli relations was laid by a decade of shifts in the Middle East’s balance of power as Israel grew stronger, the Iran threat persisted, and the U.S. signaled its intention to draw down.

Yet the Trump Administration deserves credit for taking advantage of these strategic shifts, and for setting aside the failed conventional playbook for how Arab-Israeli comity could be achieved. The Abraham Accords, named for the prophet of Jews, Christians and Muslims alike, are based on mutual interest. Mr. Trump has been criticized for a transactional view of world affairs, and we sometimes worry about how that will play out, for example, in East Asia. Yet in the Middle East, hard-headed transactionalism may have been what was needed.

American negotiators have tried for years to press the Israelis and Palestinians to give up something in a leap of faith and hope that peace will follow. Each side saw that as a lose-lose proposition. But peace between Arab states and Israel offered a win-win.

1)    Trump denounced antisemitism in two State of the Union addresses.  

2)    He moved the American Embassy to Israel from Tel Aviv to Israel’s eternal capital of Jerusalem.  In solidarity with the U.S. decision, Guatemala moved its embassy to Jerusalem and Honduras, Paraguay, Moldova, Czechia, Romania and Hungary announced that they may soon follow suit.

3)    Trump declared support for Israeli construction in Judea and Samaria.

4)    He recognized Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights, a major strategic asset that protects Israel from aggression from the northeast, and signed the document with Netanyahu at his side right before Israeli elections.

5)    Trump increased U.S. military aid to Israel and offered a mutual defense treaty between the U.S. and Israel to further the alliance between the two countries.  

6)    He defunded the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), a so-called relief agency for Arab-Palestinians marked by corruption that has incited against Israel and worked with Hamas, even enabling the building of terror tunnels under its buildings. 

7)    President Trump pulled out of the United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC) in protest of its bias against Israel and its extension of membership to notorious human rights abusers. 

8)    He withdrew from the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) citing its anti-Israel bias after it designated Hebron and the Tomb of the Patriarchs (Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Sarah, Rebecca and Leah) as Arab-Palestinian world heritage sites. (Jews have had a 3800 year presence in Hebron, which is situated in Judea – “the land of the Jews.”)

https://pjmedia.com/election/tyler-o-neil/2020/09/14/joe-biden-promises-fewer-fires-floods-and-hurricanes-if-he-wins-in-november-n930658

On Monday, Democratic nominee Joe Biden condemned President Donald Trump as a “climate arsonist,” predicting that if the president wins reelection in November, America will witness more “hellish” events like fires in the West, flooding in the Midwest, and hurricanes on the East Coast. He effectively promised that if he wins, America will suffer from fewer fires, fewer floods, and fewer hurricanes.

Although Biden excoriated Trump for “ignoring the facts” and “denying reality,” he focused his remarks on the wildfires ravaging California, Oregon, and Washington State — fires exacerbated by bad forest management more than any sort of climate change.

“If you give a climate arsonist four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised if we have more of America ablaze? If you give a climate denier four more years in the White House, why would anyone be surprised when more of America is under water?” Biden asked.

“Donald Trump’s climate denial may not have caused these fires and record floods and record hurricanes, but if he gets a second term, these hellish events will continue to become more common, more devastating, and more deadly,” the Democrat insisted.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/bloombergs-florida-purchase-11600126292?mod=opinion_lead_pos2
Well the gnomish Bloomberg did buy himself a third term as mayor of New York City….rsk

If Joe Biden carries Florida in November, he ought to make Mike Bloomberg Secretary of the Treasury. The billionaire certainly will have earned it, with an 11th-hour cash infusion of $100 million to help Mr. Biden in the state.

Florida is a must-win for President Trump, and Mr. Bloomberg’s infusion comes amid the Cook Political Report moving the race from “leans Democratic” to “toss up” and polls showing Mr. Biden underperforming among Hispanic voters. Florida is a big state with multiple and expensive media markets. Mr. Bloomberg’s money will go via his Super PAC Independence USA and other Democratic groups toward television and digital advertising in English and Spanish.

It’s all perfectly legal so long as Mr. Bloomberg doesn’t coordinate with the Biden campaign. By announcing the $100 million campaign publicly, Mr. Bloomberg is letting the Biden campaign know it can take millions it might have otherwise spent in Florida and redirect them to other battleground states.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-of-the-climate-apocalypse-11600126352?mod=opinion_lead_pos1

Sometimes we wonder if Joe Biden writes anything in his public remarks other than the words “here’s the deal.” An example is the Democratic nominee’s big speech Monday on the West Coast wildfires in which he never mentioned the need for better forest management.

The younger Joe Biden would never have allowed that kind of political malpractice. But his handlers let him deliver a lengthy speech that blamed the fires, Hurricanes Laura and Sally, flooding on the coasts, a windstorm in the Midwest, and the hot summer, among other events, on “the fury of climate change everywhere—all this year and right now.” It’s as if he saw the apocalyptic climate-change melodrama of some years back, “The Day After Tomorrow,” and decided to become Dennis Quaid.

If that seems glib, how else to describe a speech that claims to revere science but is utterly detached from it? On the wildfires, Mr. Biden’s failure to mention the need to clear dry and diseased fallen trees defies what has gradually been recognized as a necessity even on the environmental left.

Decades ago the forestry consensus changed from active management to letting nature take its course. Controlled burns that once cleared rotting underbrush stopped. Logging that thinned forests declined amid green political opposition. One unintended result, especially in dry summers or extended drought, were millions of acres of brush that become fuel for raging fires. Add the spread of housing into more distant suburbs, and the risks to people and property have grown.

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/yes-biden-called-trumps-travel-restrictions-xenophobic/

Biden campaign national press secretary TJ Ducklo had a disastrous interview with Fox News’s Bret Baier on Thursday in which Ducklo appeared to be as eminently unprepared as your typical Trump White House surrogate, and grew increasingly agitated as the segment progressed. After Baier played clips of two experts that Biden has relied upon downplaying the coronavirus in late January, Ducklo claimed that “the vice president was not against the travel ban” placed on China by President Trump on January 31. Baier pressed Ducklo on this point, repeatedly asking if Biden was for the travel restrictions. Ducklo refused to answer directly, instead saying that Biden was “not against” them and offering to send Baier “fact-checks.”

More interesting than Ducklo’s substandard performance was this offer. The day after Trump announced the travel restrictions on China, Biden tweeted that “We are in the midst of a crisis with the coronavirus. We need to lead the way with science — not Donald Trump’s record of hysteria, xenophobia, and fear-mongering. He is the worst possible person to lead our country through a global health emergency.”

https://amgreatness.com/2020/09/13/biden-the-great-and-powerful/

For now Joe Biden’s best hope is that some Emerald City media lackey does not play the role of the tiny dog Toto, rip away the curtain, and reveal the tiny man and his machinery behind the projection.

Media bias is not new.

In addition to the Russian collusion hoax and the phone-call impeachment farce, who can forget the marquee media toadies of JournoList and the release of John Podesta’s email trove? 

Or the moderator Donna Brazile’s primary debate questions, leaked through CNN, or Candy Crowley’s hijacking of a debate as moderator-turned-real-time-hack “fact-checker”? 

Nothing then is new to the media’s fusion and collusion with the “progressive party.” 

Yet never in American history have mainstream journalists not merely promoted a candidate but actively fused with his political candidacy to the point of warping, fabricating, and Trotskyizing the news and indeed history itself. 

The trope of a vast charade to create an illusionary powerful figure out of nothing is an old one in fiction, Hollywood and television. We remember “The Great and Powerful” Wizard of Oz fakery, a formidable screen image created backstage by gears and levers operated by a tiny man “behind the curtain.” Similar is the famous scene in an episode of the old Star Trek series, depicting a near comatose on-air John Gill used as a televised prop by his puppeteers, in a utopian federation project gone haywire.

But reality has outdone art with the Biden campaign. The concoction is holistic, from the mundane construction of a fantasy, on-the-go candidate to the supposed middle-of-the road old Joe Biden from Scranton radiating an aura of kindness and moderation in times of plague, panic, and protest. 

Bunker Illusions

https://issuesinsights.com/2020/09/14/democrats-hint-they-might-consider-a-coup-even-if-trump-wins/

he strength of America’s elections lies in people’s confidence that votes will be fairly tallied, and that the losing party will bow out gracefully and become the loyal opposition. But what if a loser refuses to acknowledge the results of a free and fair election? What if it instead takes to the streets to commit violence and mayhem? Or even attempts a coup?

We ask because there’s every sign now that the Democrats, in a panic over candidate Joe Biden’s lackluster basement campaign and growing evidence that he is suffering age-related mental impairment, will refuse to acknowledge President Donald Trump for a second term, even if he wins clearly.

The last time we had a party really refuse to accept the results of an election was in 1860. Then, Democrats in southern states threatened to secede if Abraham Lincoln, candidate of the anti-slavery Republican Party, won. He did, and southern states began seceding before he even took office. We fought a civil war.

Today, we might be edging toward another.

“We now seem to be on the cusp of relitigating the question, only instead of slaveholding southerners blackmailing the country with secession, it’s anti-Trump Democrats and left-wing radicals threatening to tear the country apart if Trump wins in November,” writes John Daniel Davidson at the Federalist. “For them, the Union is conditional, and Trump’s reelection will violate their conditions.”

Of course, in 2000 and 2016 the Democrats also objected to the election outcome, but at least could argue that the Republican winner in neither election had a majority of the popular vote. (Irrelevant, of course, since thanks to the Founders’ wisdom we choose our president through the Electoral College, which gives individual states clout in picking the nation’s chief executive. That keeps the U.S. from being dominated by a dictatorship of just four or five heavily populated states.)